Thunderstorm
by EsmereldaGaladriel
Summary: Jolyne loves storms where the rain falls in sheets and thunder cracks through the air almost as fast as the lightning. She also fears she has her dear old dad's talent for ruining everything good in her life.


**This is unedited and not very good quality. Someday I shall write a conclusion, but for now, have this.**

The fluorescent lighting, Emporio said, sometimes made it hard to sleep normally.

Jolyne could understand. The human body seemed to like sleeping longer and staying awake longer than added up to twenty-four hours, so Emporio probably was living on something closer to a twenty-six hour schedule. And that was without all that stuff about blue light from the television set and the computer.

So sometimes he kept the rooms open at night. It meant they were tired the next day, sure, but it was worth it to spend some time curled up with a book. Hermes, FF, and Weather Report were there most of the time — she'd chuckled a bit when Emporio explained why he didn't always invite Anasui.

"Well, I guess he's not bad, but I'd rather listen to you than listen to him talk about you. Weather's getting sick of it, too. And he always sits on the piano and tries to look cool. It's really not good for the instrument."

Jolyne leafed through a copy of _The Silmarillion_. She'd been the biggest Lord of the Rings nerd when she was a kid — read the books, then watched the movies when they came out. It was surprising to see how much deeper the books went, even beyond the appendices. That dude had one massive world in his head. It was a good thing they kept some copies of the family trees at the back of the book. Then again, the names made things easy to keep track of. You knew, for example, that there is no way in hell that Huor and Tuor weren't related.

From where she was sitting, she could flick her eyes up and see Hermes, surprisingly reading a psychology textbook. In the opposite corner, Weather seemed to be sketching something. FF was peacefully sleeping in the corner. Jolyne didn't have the heart to wake them up. They just looked too adorable.

This was so much better than a cell with the dulcet tones of Gwess ringing in your ear all night. She could have snored way worse, but sometimes she talked in her sleep. It'd been pretty scary the first time, when she'd woken up in the middle of the night and Gwess was yelling about airplanes again.

She looked back to Hermes. The first girl she'd fallen for. She was sitting on the other side of the couch, leaned up against the arm. A fact a day, that was the average. She learned one thing a day about Hermes. Today's fact was that she knew some psych. Maybe she'd had a good teacher in high school, or something.

A few weeks ago, it was that she could make a killer crème brûlée. Yeah, she could be lying, because they weren't allowed anywhere near the kitchen, but why would you lie about crème brûlée? After all, all you needed to do was follow the recipe and be good with a blowtorch.

Before that, it had been that she was a Star Wars fan. That she got riled up over politics. That she played soccer pretty damn well until she was fourteen. That she loved that weird mixed cereal made out of leftover cornflakes and rice puffs and bits of Special K. Said it stuck to your ribs. She didn't mince words, and she couldn't mince onions to save her life.

 _Weather_. The thought sprang into her mind as she wandered through the memories of the past few weeks.

Weather. Not the dude with the weird hairdo and the okay drawing skills, but the climatological thing. Phenomenon, or whatever. Some people just put you in mind of some sort of weather. Emporio was a light snowfall, Anasui was acid rain, Weather was the chill that freezes fog and keeps snow frozen. FF was a sunshower.

It was stupid and cliché, but Hermes was a _thunderstorm_.

She didn't do things by half measures. She barged in, laughing or shouting or raging, spinning the world around her by sheer force of gravity. Once Hermes was there, everything else just faded into the background. Fire, yes, but something so concentrated and white-hot it left you standing for a moment before you were dead, with sorrow pouring down around it like the flood of all the ancient stories.

And Jolyne loved to watch, and listen, and soak up every ounce of electricity crackling through the air. Hermes was everything she wanted to be and everything she wanted to protect, brash enough to stuff money wherever and full enough of a sort of fierce kindness to track down Romeo just to keep her _safe_.

Hermes.

"Yeah?"

She realized she'd zoned out looking right at Hermes, who'd noticed. Obviously. Quickly, she skimmed the page she was on, looking for a good word pronounce.

"Hey, have a listen to this," she said, "Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Doesn't that sound cool?"

She'd taken a stab at the pronunciation, with a romantic "i," Italian "r," and German "ae" and "oe." It was worth a try.

Hermes seemed to think it over, and Jolyne gritted her teeth to keep from showing her embarrassment at being caught staring.

"Can I have a look?"

"Sure."

Jolyne dog-eared the page, and tossed it over.

"Hmmm."

Hermes looked at the page for a moment, flipped back to the appendices, back to the word, and narrowed her eyes.

"How does this sound? Nirnaeth Arnoediad."

The r's were softer, almost like a Japanese flipped "r," and she separated the sound of the "ae" and "oe," blending them together as "ah-é" and "oh-é." In Hermes' rough voice, it was undeniably attractive.

"Woah, that sounded nice."

"I looked at the notes in the back," Hermes mumbled, tossing the book back, "All you have to do is try and sound like Cate Blanchett."

Jolyne looked at the book, then back up at Hermes. Fact two of the day. Today was shaping up to be good. "Didn't know you knew the story."

Hermes raised an eyebrow. "You kidding me? Those movies kick ass!"

" _Definitely_ true." Jolyne paused. Being a bit of a loner at school had led her into the kind company of a bunch of subpar adventure books, but the Lord of the Rings had been one of the better series. "You got a favourite race?"

"A favourite _what_?"

Jolyne readjusted herself on the couch, curling her legs up under her. "You know, elves, dwarves, humans, hobbits, orcs. Except no one likes orcs, 'cos even I think they're disgusting."

Hermes seemed to relax. "Oh, that. Dwarves, of course! They yell, they complain, they're badasses like nobody's business. Even tried to fight that flying fire bull thing. You?"

The candle flame of warmth that flickered just behind her sternum flared. Most people liked the elves best, bunch of stuck-up pretty bastards that they were. Not Hermes, oh no. Her best friend was way better than that.

"Same. Didja know, in this book—" she gestured enthusiastically with _The Silmarillion_ , "There's this bit where there's a giant battle, like thousands of years before any of that Sauron shit happens, and anyway they're fighting this bigass dragon, and no one can touch it but the dwarves, because they're made out of asbestos or whatever."

A grin crossed Hermes' face. "Nice. Those elves can suck it."

"Sure can."

Jolyne was about to keep chatting, but she noticed Emporio looking at them with a bit of a wistful expression.

"Hey, you got a question?" she asked, still building up steam. She could go on and on for ages about the kindreds of the elves and how stupid Fëanor was and how badass Haleth was.

He shook his head timidly, fingers intertwining absentmindedly. "No, not really. I was just interested. I didn't know there were Lord of the Rings books."

"I can't believe your mother let you watch the movies," Hermes joked, "They're PG-13!"

The three of them chuckled, and Jolyne raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Isn't this your library?"

"Well, yes, but I haven't read everything," he continued quietly. "Some of the writing is a bit complicated."

Hermes nodded sagely. "That's true. I don't think I read much until I was in junior high."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence before Jolyne broke it. "You want us to read some to you? I can take out some of the complicated bits as I read."

Emporio sat back in his chair slightly, looking mortified from the possibility of having put someone to trouble on his behalf. He was saved by a grinning Hermes from having to speak.

"Yeah! I can do some of the voices."

Jolyne chuckled. "Yeah, you can do the elvish."

She flipped back to the beginning, and scanned some of the Ainulindalë, trying to figure out how to simplify the concepts of discord and a few of the music metaphors.

"Emporio? You joining us?" Hermes asked, shifting so that she faced forwards. "It'll be an award-winning performance by the five-star Green Dolphin Theatre Company."

"What awards did we win?" Jolyne asked.

"The Tony for best self-control in not ripping Anasui a new one."

"Damn right."

Emporio hopped up on the couch, wrapping himself in one of the blankets draped over it and chuckling. "I guess so."

Jolyne was about to start, but noticed the man hunched over a notebook in the corner. Weather was pretty anti-social, but hey, it was their solemn duty to bring him into the light of Tolkien.

"Hey, Weather, wanna do some voices?"

He looked up. "Voices?"

"Yeah," Hermes chimed in, "Got a couple species we need someone for."

After a brief staring contest, he sighed, carefully closed the notebook, and sat down on the far end of the chesterfield. Four people on one item was a bit squishy, but it was okay. Jolyne tried to keep the blood out of her cheeks once Hermes had draped her arm around her shoulders. It was pathetic, but she'd inherited a complete _inability_ to do anything romantic from her dad.

"All right," Hermes announced, "We're all set. Jolyne, on your mark, get set…go!"

Jolyne took a breath.

"There was Eru, the one, who was called Ilúvatar on Earth, and they created the gods…"

…

They stopped after Thingol met Melian, not because the story stopped, but because Emporio had fallen asleep and Weather had wandered off once they stopped needed him to voice the bits about the Valar.

"Do you know where this kid's bed is?" Hermes murmured. "He's flat out."

Truth be told, Jolyne was getting drowsy, too. Hermes had been reading most of the last part, and the rich alto of her voice had curled around them like smoke. She really did sound beautiful when she wasn't shouting. She sounded good when she was shouting, too, but it was a different sort of good. It was great. It was the lightning, and this was the heavy, hypnotizing rain.

"Don't know," Jolyne whispered back, "I think he sleeps on the couch."

"So where does Weather sleep?"

Jolyne eased Emporio's head off of her shoulder, then stood up, laying him out on the couch.

"Dunno. Looks like we're going to have to spend the night here, though, so I might as well explore."

Jolyne laughed quietly. "I'll go with you."

"What else are friends for than to get dragged off?"

"Damn straight. Not straight. You know what I mean."

Hermes' hands had somehow found their way to her jawline, and hers to the collar of Hermes' sweater.

"Yes."

Jolyne leaned forwards, relishing the brief feeling of terror and awe all combined, and stopped.

She wasn't doing anything, but she still stopped. Her heart. Her breath. They stopped.

This was all too good. Her dad was fine. FF was here. Anasui was gone.

She could feel Hermes' heartbeat, and see the latticework of scars across her face that looked like lightning.

She knew where Emporio slept. She knew where Weather and Anasui slept. It was here, in Emporio's Stand. So why wasn't Anasui here? Why couldn't she remember precisely where the bed was? She'd been here before.

"Tell me…" she began, not daring to move away and give this up, "What was your offence, again?"

Hermes looked confused.

"Armed robbery," she whispered. "Remember? Bastard killed my sister, I ended up here."

"And who was that?"

"Was what?"

"Who was that bastard? Spell his name."

"Why?"

"Just spell it. For me."

"S-p-o-r-t-s-M-a-x. Sports Max. You happy?"

No. It was Sports Maxx. The stupid bastard had two exes. Bit like her dad. Her Hermes wouldn't have forgotten that easily.

" _Stone Free!_ "

…

Jolyne woke up, gasping for air.

FF was dead. Her dad…he was probably alive, but with all that time away from oxygen he might be as good as dead. They were on the run.

Hermes was here. Emporio was here.

That was good.

She pushed herself up, looking around the room. Hermes was sprawled out on a diagonal, somehow managing to be at a right angle to the blanket, and Emporio was curled up in a ball, clutching his cap.

They were still alive. Weather and Anasui weren't here, but they could protect each other.

She let herself fall back.

She had something. Two things. Here, and now, there were a child and a force of nature sleeping side-by-side with a goddamned incompetent.

She had lost so much (why did FF sacrifice themself why did her dad do _anything_ ). Even worse, there were things she'd never had.

How do you do it?

In the dim, bluish light filtering through the shabby motel curtains, Jolyne ached for an answer.

How do you ruin the one gods damn thing you've got left?

Even her dad had his fucking dolphins when he abandoned them. It was like…well, it wasn't like anything. That was the point! If she knew what to do she'd be doing it. But she didn't. So she wasn't.


End file.
